This is another Sunday Story (and another dog story). No politics here, just a story of our life with five dogs!!
Dog Rehab
It’s been a long few weeks since our Lab had ACL knee surgery (Sad, Sad Boy). It’s Atticus, the dog that’s allergic to everything (his special food is salmon and sweet potatoes), the Lab with anxiety issues, the sweet boy who can lose his mind in the wrong sequence of events. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that his recovery is taking longer than possible. Of course, his knee is infected, swelling up and keeping him up at night. Of course, each week of infection stretches the time it will take to get him back to “normal” (or at least normal for him) now deep into April. And of course, his first antibiotic was so powerful, Jenn and I had to wear gloves to handle to pills.
So he didn’t eat for a few days (except for treats and carrots). And, I’m sure, the swelling was painful. Even the heavy-handed menu of painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs didn’t last the scheduled twelve hours. It’s Atticus; we get eight hours for eight pills at best.
We moved him out of Jenn’s office and into the family room. At least he isn’t so isolated, and we aren’t either. Oh, and if he’s awake, he needs one of us around. “I don’t feel right” is his most popular whine, followed quickly by “where are you?” So Jenn and I take turns sleeping on the couch, being there for the two in-the-morning walk, or when the drugs wear off too soon.
So we’re all tired. Not just Atticus, Jenn and I; but the other four dogs. Recovery is tough on them too.
Full Belly and Sleep
But Wednesday night, after Atticus ate for the first time in a week, everyone went peacefully to sleep. Well, after the 2:30 am walk. Atticus had to go for the first time in days – no waiting for that. At 5:00 the other dogs went out per their own schedule, and then we all were snoozing deeply again. Maybe we’d make it to 7:00?
The alert siren on my phone went off at 5:45. I could hear Jenn’s phone going off in the bedroom too: TORNADO WARNING for Licking County. And then the local siren, just down the street, started its mournful wail.
Now all the dogs were fired up – waking from a sound sleep to the phones and then the siren. But Lou, our rescue from Louisiana, has a special affinity for sirens. It’s his “Call of the Wild” moment, when his inner wolf gains expression. Lou picked up the tune, howling at full volume. It’s a hauntingly beautiful wail from the bottom of his soul. You can feel the ages of wolf-to-dog fall away: this is the canine primeval.
Well of course, our little one, CeCe, had to join in. She’s doesn’t have an inner wolf, but she can sure bark the loudest in the pack. Keelie, the mother dog of us all, worriedly watched her friends, and Buddy, our oldest dog, went to get under the bed. It’s too much noise for him. Atticus drowsily opened one eye.
Tornado Scofflaw
I turned on the TV, saw the local radar, and went to wake Jenn (yep, she can sleep though it all). “Honey, the radar says a tornado could be here in about five minutes – time to get up.”
Now I’m a notorious scofflaw when it comes to tornado warnings. In fact, I’m one of those track coaches/officials who stands out in the field and watches the weather come in while all the kids go into the school for protection. It’s just a thing – I love weather, I’ve camped through a tornado and watched the derecho tear down a forest around us. But I do have a thing about tornadoes in the dark, and it wasn’t dawn yet in this “freak” (or climate changed) February storm.
So Jenn was shocked and concerned when I said we needed to get to the bathrooms. We live in a ranch-style house, no basement. The two rooms in the center core of the house are the bathrooms, both backing up to an “exterior wall” that now is in the middle of our home. And, the addition that put the wall in the middle, also put a “double roof” over both bathrooms, even more protection.
But they aren’t giant sized bathrooms, just regular-sized. There’s not enough room for Jenn and me, and five dogs. Besides, Lou isn’t sure what to do with an injured Atticus, and Atticus is intimidated, knowing he’s sub-par with Lou. Jenn took Atticus and Buddy (not happy to get out from under the bed) in one bathroom, I took Lou, Keelie and CeCe in the other.
Waiting for a Train
We hung out for about twenty minutes. The dogs kept looking at me, wondering what this new game was all about. I was watching TV on my phone, trying to detect what was going to happen by examining the local radar. It was easier in the old days with just green, orange, red and occasionally purple cloud splotches. Now there’s digitally generated map of green and red slashes, showing wind shears in the atmosphere. When the rectangles of color are side-by-side, it means that a tornado is likely.
So we sat, waiting for the power to go out, waiting for the sirens to stop, waiting for the freight train sound of an impending tornado strike.
We got lucky. Friends only a few miles away actually were hit be a tornado; trees down, roofs shredded, power lines webbing the streets. But here, the urban camouflage passed us by, headed east towards Newark and the rest of the state. It’s always odd to listen to the Columbus-based TV weather-people, so relieved when the storm passes urban Columbus by. Downtown’s relief means someone east is now under the gun, with consequences just as serious. “Oh, the storm is out to Zanesville”, isn’t a relief if you live in Zanesville.
And we did get a late-morning nap, the dogs spread about the floor, Atticus in his crate, and Jenn and I in our “chairs”. The storm front dropped the temperatures from May back to February. Now we’re warm besides the fire. Maybe Lou’s dreaming about that first wolf, the one that came in from the cold to a human camp just to get warm.
The Sunday Story Series
- Riding the Dog – 1/24/21
- Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
- A Track Story – 2/7/21
- Ritual – 2/14/21
- Voyageur – 2/19/21
- A Dog Story – 2/25/21
- A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
- Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
- Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
- More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
- Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
- A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
- My Teachers – 5/9/21
- Old Friends – 5/23/21
- The Gift – 6/6/21
- Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
- Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
- Running Memories – 7/25/21
- Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
- Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
- The New Guy – 9/5/21
- Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
- The Interview – 9/26/21
- Night Moves – 10/3/21
- Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
- National Security – 10/24/21
- Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
- Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
- Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
- Watching Brian 12/12/21
- Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
- Team Trips – 12/26/21
- Uphill, Both Ways – 1/9/22
- Old Trophies – 1/30/22
- The Last Time – 2/7/22
- Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
- Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
- Track Weather – 4/3/22
- What’s Missing – 4/11/22
- A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
- Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
- Origin Stories – 5/22/22
- Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
- Back at State – 6/5/22
- Out in the Country – 6/19/22
- Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
- Car Stories I – 7/24/22
- Car Stories II – 7/31/22
- Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
- Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
- New to the Pack – 8/21/22
- Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
- A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
- Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22
- Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
- Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
- Busy Season – 5/15/23
- Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
- A Pole Vault Story -6/11/23
- End of an Era – 6/25/23
- Paybacks – 7/2/23
- Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
- Being a Goat – 7/23/23
- Toy Truck – 8/20/23
- Medical Terms – 8/27/23
- Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
- The McGowan – 9/10/23
- Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
- The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
- A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
- Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
- Out in the Country – 12/10/23
- Christmas Eve – 12/24/23
- Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
- Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
- A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
- Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
